Her Armor
by BixIsHere
Summary: [5x20 Spoilers] After leaving Killian in the Underworld, Emma deals with her grief and guilt. One shot. (K-plus for mention of blood)
**[A/N: Welcome to my story! A one shot to continue 5x20 (You probably shouldn't read if you haven't watched the ep, it implies spoilers).**

 **Basically CS grief and what Emma makes out of it. It's a little depressed but it came to my mind and maybe this helps me a little to get over the heartbreak :/  
**

 **Ok also this is my first ff for OUaT and I didn't write this much yet (and I didn't write much in english... I'm german), so reviews are very welcome! (: ]**

He stood before her, covered in blood, his left eye swollen.

 _Emma, it hurts!_ She took a step to him, but he vanished. He reappeared, restored this time, now left of her.

 _Emma._ This time she heard an accuse in his voice. She hadn't believed him.

 _Emma, why aren't you here with me?_ His voice whispered. Lonely. Boken. She stumbled through the void, but every step she took seemed to seperate her even more from him. And then there he was, right in front of her. His eyes were filled with the sad burden of centuries. He stood in flames, they looked like wings around him. Hurt. Waiting for her to come. To rescue him.

With a gasp she woke up.

Her heart was racing. Cold sweat covered her skin and she panted, as the darkness around her sunk in on her. She was alone, again. Her back hurt from the position she had be sleeping in, so she pushed herself up. Sitting up always helped to distance her from a dream. She burried her face in her hands and listened to her breath slowing down, calming herself. She looked around. Saw her messed up bed, the blanket lay cold on the ground next to it. She saw the untouched other side.

It was wrong. She sat here alone, in their house. In their future. In her future. He was gone and there was nothing left she could do about it. The only thing she was left with now was the weigh of her grief. Was she meant to carry it all on herself? His voice crept back in her head.

 _Just, promise me one thing: If I helped to put off that armor, don't put it back on, just because you're gonna lose me._ He wanted her to go forward.

 _"I promised,"_ She reminded herself. Her voice was fragile from all the sobs of the last days.

This couldn't be it. She arched her back, and with a sigh, she swung the legs over the edge of the bed.

* * *

Mere thirty minutes later, she picked the lock of the appartement. For the tenth time she cursed the spare keys she had forgot at their – her house. Finally, she heard the tumbles. The door swung open and Emma carefully stepped in the dark appartement. After she had slowly closed the door, she just stayed a while in the living room. She hold her big pillow in her arms and just stood there. Listened to the calm breaths of her parents. To the beautiful old clock in the bedroom, ticking. To the heater, pumping the water through the pipes. The dim darkness of the night had a completely different quality here than in her bedroom. Soothing. And the smell. Snow's washing powder, David's shower gel. A hint of cinnamon. After what must have been ten minutes of listening, smelling and gazing through the schemes of the inventory, she slowly tip-toed to the couch by the window. She placed her pillow on the arm rest. The one where Killian had nervously twitched his fingers, when he not-so-much admitted his jealousy of August, just before they were put under the sleeping spell. She carefully picked up the blanket from the chair. The smell brought her back to the moment after Elsa and her were freed of the ice jail. Killians arms around her. Her parents and Henry there, a warm cocoa in her hands. With the blanket, she settled on the same spot her parents sat, back then when she came home from that "first date" with Killian, back then, when she acted like a teenager, wishing to live alone. How foolish she'd been.

She wondered why all these memories were so bearable here. It were the same that had haunted her in the new house. But here, it was like a safe haven.

The tears came back, and it didn't even surprise her. Everything made her cry lately. But these weren't tears of despair or grief. It were qiuet tears of relieve. After all the years of struggling, at last, she had found a home. She had found a family. A place were she didn't need an armor. Why? She realised, the answer was simple. The people she had wanted to protect herself from, they had become her strength. _Love is strength._ Her family would never leave her alone. They would protect her. They had become her armor. With that as her last thought, she finally sunk into a deep dreamless sleep.


End file.
